i must have seen a different film!!

The film may be flawed, but its message is not.

The story, direction, characters, and writing/dialogue is akin to taking a tranquilizer shot to the neck, but everything else was so well done.

Great example of an old-fashioned, pure-at-heart escapist event movie that doesn't pretend to be anything that it's not and has boat loads of fun being its own ludicrous self.

It's been a long time since I read the book or saw the movie, but the casting in this film was all wrong. I saw the trailer on TV, saw the disaster the film might be, but I went to see it anyways and I was very disappointed. Tom Hanks, even before Philadelphia or Forrest Gump or Sleepless in Seattle, played the likable every-man. Hanks' character, Sherman McCoy, is a wall street tycoon, aged 38, with a wife two years older, a daughter he adores, and a young mistress that he insists he deserves all because he is a "master of the universe". In the book, Judy McCoy, Sherman's wife, is described as handsome but matronly at aged 40. Sherman remembers his mother telling him a wife two years older would not make a difference when he was 24 and she was 26, but 20 years later it would, and actually it took only ten years.But then one night when he is with his mistress, Sherman takes a wrong turn off the freeway into the South Bronx and ends up hitting a black youth with his car because he perceives his life is in danger, and decides to not report the accident to police, to "hit and run". However, he is tracked down and arrested and soon realizes he is not the master of anything compared to the grifters, community leaders, ambulance chasers, and prosecutors who finally have a completely unlikable rich white perp and a poor black victim.The novel was wonderful and nuanced. The movie is obvious and almost farcical. Hanks is too likable to play any of the characters in this film, I had Bruce Willis pictured as Sherman McCoy more than the drunken yellow journalist, and Kim Cattrell, who plays Sherman's wife, doesn't look like the matronly 40 year old and barely tolerated wife of anybody in 1990. Only Morgan Freeman as the judge rings remotely true. I'd pass on this one if I were you, but for sure read the book. After the 2008 crash and the banksters walking away without a scratch, Sherman McCoy seems more real than ever.

I've never read the source novel for "Bonfire of the Vanities", so I can't view the film version in an adaptation context. But I can look at this as a movie that features a laundry list of capable actors and a skilled director and ask, "What the hell is this?" All this talent wasted on something so meandering, on-the-nose and comically unfunny? Sherman McCoy is supposed to be an unlikable character, and they go out and cast Tom Hanks? And Melanie Griffith over Uma Thurman? Honestly, this thing was doomed from the first step.On the plus side, Morgan Freeman steals the entire thing (although his percentage of screen time is woefully lacking). And F. Murray Abraham does have the one funny line. That's right, one. The satirical wit herein isn't rapier, but more plastic spoon, and it just makes the whole movie a grind. Some of the worst pacing I've seen in a while.If you do decide to suffer through this wretchedness, immediately go out and read Julie Salamon's "The Devil's Candy", which is one of the most scintillating behind-the-scenes books out there.Unbelievably more rewarding than the movie.3/10

I remember to see this movie in 1991 a year later when come out in theaters and see all the bad reviews and something only to discover that everything that critics says wasn't completely true.With a great great cast,great director,great music so i asked why the hell all the bad reviews? My only complain very little is that the parts of HANKS-WILLIS are change i mean the part of HANKS should be done by WILLIS and vice versa.Besides that the movie are very entertainment and all the characters all in they parts completely so i don't have any complain of this movie.Screw the critics and give this movie a chance...Believe me you won't be disappointment.

A very under-rated and under appreciated movie.No other movie out there quite captures the phony and insincere hypocrisy of today's media and advocacy groups better than this one.The only people who don't like this film are the ones who the film is satirizing. This movie, like Hollywood Shuffle, was way ahead of its time.Like most accurate and truthful books and films, they are rarely appreciated in their day because the brutal honesty and truthfulness of what they have to say is too painful to openly accept and admit. It is a classic satire and incredibly well-written and well-acted.I would recommend this film to anyone.